XCEL

11:20

“Kinuka? Hey, Kinuka! Are we nearly there yet?”

And thus marked the fifth time Juusei Kanon had asked that exact same question in the past ten minutes. The girl bounced in her seat like a raccoon dosed with amphetamine. The phrasing had varied slightly each time, but the effect on everyone in earshot—about two dozen commuters—remained just as irritating. Many glared over their smartphones and newspapers at the pair with neither the wherewithal or the courage to silence them. The fact that Juusei’s voice was a consistent ten decibels louder than was reasonable didn’t exactly help.

The train journey into town had, for the most part, been so ordinary that it took Juusei prodding her hard in the arm for Kinuka Amibari to realise the last few days hadn’t just been a painful fever dream. The blonde giggled a little. “We’re not there yet. Nearly, though.” She pointed up at the map painted onto the compartment wall. “You see that glowing dot there? That’s us. We’ve got two more stops until we reach the city centre, okay?”

Kinuka had always wanted a little sister. There was so much she wished she knew when she was younger. That was the duty of an older sibling, providing limited yet crucial wisdom from one’s own mistakes—or so she thought.

“Bored…” Juusei slumped down in her seat, slapping her knees with both palms. She didn’t react to Kinuka’s explanation. She didn’t appear to have heard. Looking up and down the aisle, she asked, “can’t this thing go any faster? Who do I need to shoot to—”

A hand—Kinuka’s—clamped fast over her mouth before she could complete the sentence. “Don’t say that! Not here, please!”

Juusei clutched at Kinuka’s arm, struggling in muffled protest, eyes fearful. The man next to them was shuffling away slightly. A stab of pain then shot up Kinuka’s arm. She yelped and yanked away her hand. Cat-like teeth had left dotted puncture wounds oozing red on her finger. Kinuka winced and held the injured hand in the other. Juusei didn’t register the harm she’d caused until she saw the bleeding.

“Omigosh I’m so, so sorry—” She pleaded, seizing Kinuka’s hand in both her own. “I didn’t mean to! Was an accident, I’m sorry! Just a reflex—”

Kinuka took a few deep breaths. The skin had already sewn itself shut. “I’m okay.” She managed a smile. “It just gave me a little shock. Sorry for covering your mouth like that.” She lowered her voice. “I just didn’t want people getting the wrong idea.”

Juusei looked at her, puzzled. “What?”

They stared at each other for a moment, before Juusei started up a series of hand-signs, ending with an inflection.

Kinuka blinked a few times, a little perplexed, before the gears finally clicked. She didn’t know a word of sign language to save her life—she had never needed to—but had another method of communication in mind. “Could you hear what I was saying earlier?” She was attempting to speak through her third eye, two fingers pressed against her temple.

Juusei’s eyes lit up; the message, received. “You said something?!” The girl’s response resonated in Kinuka’s head. “I had no idea! Sorry!” A little colour drained from her face. She stared at the carriage floor. “I can’t hear very well sometimes. It was so loud, so often; they forced me to fire my guns over and over, until…” Juusei’s stare went a thousand yards in an instant. She nearly jumped when Kinuka pulled her into a tight hug.

“You’re alright.” Kinuka reassured telepathically. “I had no idea. Thank you for letting me know.”

Damned be the stares of the other passengers; Juusei hung on tight, a few tears leaking onto Kinuka’s shoulder. The next moment, she had returned to her usual bouncy self, practically ricocheting off the walls in excitement of their destination. Kinuka couldn’t blame her. How wonderful it must be to view the world through such fresh eyes. After all, for Juusei, it was the first viewing of the world she’d had in little over half a decade.

* * *

Rin and Ruri bolted down the side-street after the mannequin. They’d be damned if they let it get away. Ruri’s legs were so long, one stride eclipsed two of Rin’s. The boy often felt small, but this was getting ridiculous. Even so, the more he practised, Rin found his own stamina unconsciously fuelled by his psychic energy. His legs felt lighter than they had ever. He wasn’t even short of breath. Such an incredible feeling.

The two ran side by side down several progressively more winding streets, further into the city itself. The buildings grew larger, more complex. More lights came into view—noise, too. Cars filled the roads now, the usual cacophony of engines stopping and starting in slow city traffic: all were signs of civilisation beyond the residential monotony. More people came into view, many walking the opposite way; a few near-misses were inevitable. Ruri took to the near edge of the road to avoid hitting anyone by accident; Rin, on the other hand, Framework’ed himself a large riot shield on one arm and barrelled through the morning pedestrians like a runaway train, praying those ahead of him were awake enough to get out of the way. A few weren’t, of course, and many vocalised their upset as they were sent flying. Rin didn’t bother stopping. That was their fault they got injured, not his. Besides, if they slowed down, they’d lose track of the mannequin!

The psychic signature grew steadily louder. Rin felt every ripple seep into his bones; an ominous influence that made every sensible part of him fear death. Fortunately, those parts were few in number. Most of him ran off sheer spite, and so paid little attention to the fears. Soon, a din of voices, worried shouts, attracted their attention from a side street. What was more, the weather had taken an abrupt downturn. The cover of clouds grew thicker, rolling with an eerie thunder. People on the streets had stopped and were pointing. The clouds themselves weren’t the worrying part; the fact they were so concentrated around one spot was what raised eyebrows. Ruri pointed. The mannequin headed that way too. They changed direction and sprinted down an alley. It wasn’t wide enough for them both; either Ruri had the grace to let Rin go first, or Rin was just too fast. Rin personally preferred to believe the latter.

The alley had been a shortcut. Soon, the mannequin—both boys not far behind—emerged near the entrance to a park. A pair of wrought iron gates stood stout, guarding the sacred green. Their wooden man slowed to a halt, destination reached. Rin dashed and seized the construct by the shoulders. It collapsed at his touch; that signal from before had all but vanished, only residual traces remained. Rin ran his hands all over to try and find any distinguishing marks. Certain kanji had been carved into its forehead: “Vessel of Tan’in Mokuzo.” It meant nothing to him now, but he’d remember that name. Rin let go, watching the doll crumple to the floor, then captured it in a frame for safekeeping.

Standing, he walked a few paces forward, looking up and around. The realisation hit him. He’d been here before.

11:30

“This is Kawarajima Park!” Rin’s brow furrowed. There was no mistaking it; he had stood before these very gates many times. Hours of his solitary childhood had been spent building to his hearts’ content in the sandpit. The other children were constantly coddled by the anxious helicopters, but Rin had been better than all of them. He didn’t need his parents to look after him. He had already learned how to look after himself.

“This is definitely Kawarajima. I don’t remember it being like this, though.”

The din they’d heard came from a small crowd gathered outside the gates. Rin had sensed the crowd’s spiking psychic energy from ages away; collective anxiety was through the roof. They hammered on a barrier they couldn’t see; peering through a fog they couldn’t breach.

“A Distortion,” Rin murmured. All the hair on his neck stood up. “This one’s different from the others.”

Ruri’s shoulders raised, tense.

A polychrome aura had enveloped the area beyond the park gates; an aurora borealis, but not of this world. Bright voids filled with a horrific static tore jagged gashes in the fabric of reality, ethereal bolts of lightning forking down from the dark clouds. This was nothing like the train station. Here, they were looking into the distorted space from the outside. Not only that, this distortion was rooted in space, not bound by time.

“What’s going on?” Rin rushed forward and seized one woman from the crowd by the shoulder.

She gave him a panicked stare. “Something’s happened to the park!” She bleated. “My children are trapped inside that storm; it just came out of nowhere!”

Her voice was cut off by a sudden static boom. Another tear carved itself into being, splintering outwards from the tumultuous void. It split the frightened crowd down the middle. Most leapt to the side, but one lost his balance and fell into the rift.

The Architect’s vision had proven right. The immaterial crevice seized the man and paralysed him in midair. For a moment the entire crowd, the storm, and even the air held still. The man’s entire body tensed at once. Bones shattered as muscles pulled, limbs contorting into the realm of anatomical impossibility. Eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth was pulled wide open. What followed was a haunting, tortured scream. The man writhed in place. Sharp splintering sounds ensued as the man’s jaw snapped on its hinges, the muscles in his neck pulling the chin lower and lower, stretching the mouth to gross extremes. A jagged crack split the man’s face in two, and the gleam of a third eye was starting to poke through.

The Rejection Process. Rin stood rooted to the spot. He had seen it before, and it horrified him then; this wasn’t a vision anymore.

The existential torture was cut short, as something large and blue collided with the man around the middle. Ruri Karakusa, frozen in a charging tackle, glowed with a metallic sheen as he passed through the rift. He knocked the man from clutches of the void and out the other side. Ruri unfroze and rolled to a standstill, miraculously unharmed. For the other man, however, it was already too late. The man hit the ground and crumpled; a sack of strain-shredded meat and broken bone, yes, but not a reject. Ruri had managed to stop the process before it was too late.

“Idiot!” Rin pushed himself through the crowd and ran to Ruri’s side. The large boy was cradling the man’s corpse in his arms, shaking him as though it would do him any good. “What on earth were you thinking?” Rin asked. “You could’ve been caught in that rift as well!”

Ruri gave him a reproachful look, then back down at the broken man. Rin grit his teeth. “Come on. Put him down. He’s already gone.” He stood, turned away and walked back towards the crowd. Eyes narrowed, Rin bit down on his lip. Once again, he’d failed to save someone through inaction. First Kinuka, and now a man whose name he’d never get a chance to learn. Rin could already feel the Architect’s stern gaze on the back of his neck; not just the old man’s either, but also his own. A cold sweat trickled down his face. He had been just like the rest, frozen into pathetic inaction. Ruri had at least tried. Rin grimaced, tasting blood on his lip; he’d bitten down so hard he’d broken the skin. Had he truly learned nothing? Was he still so immature that he failed to act when someone needed his help?

Another crack through the air—another rift—cut Rin free from the ropes of his reverie. The void full of that blinding static cleaved a path through space and towards the rest of the crowd. Rin didn’t think this time. He acted.

“Get back!” Rin conjured a giant screen, and shoved it forth with a yell. The moving wall slammed into a number of others who would’ve otherwise met a similar fate, sending them flying. They had a rough landing, but were still alive. Rin’s momentum, however, carried him into the rift. Bolts of psychic energy, raw and untamed, shot through his nerves like lightning. The pain was excruciating, but he made it through unscathed. The crowd were now gawking at him, mouths ajar.

“What are you staring for?!” He yelled. “Go! Get the hell out of here!”

His voice seemed to rouse them all from the trance of shock. The din of confusion and terror set the crowd alight. They scrambled to their feet and made for the hills. Rin didn’t have time to watch them go, narrowly avoiding another rift that threatened to cut him in two. A realisation dawned. This distortion was spreading. The rifts were only growing more frequent, the static distorting the surrounding space. If this kept up at such an exponential rate, it wouldn’t be long before the distortion had consumed the entire city.

“Architect. Are you seeing this?” Rin knew he was. What else did the almighty grump have to do with his time?

The Architect faded into view over Rin’s shoulder. “Well recognised; another distortion lies before you. The boundary between the physical and cognitive worlds has breached, somehow.” His lip curled. “Havoc ensues; the space between is fused into a torturous limbo. If you don’t stop it, it will consume everything.”

“How am I supposed to stop it?”

“You must use Framework to stabilise the dimensional divide. I will assist you when the time comes; something on this scale is beyond your capabilities at the moment.”

Rin didn’t even try to argue. Looking now into the eye of this psychic storm, he was so out of his depth here it wasn’t even funny. He looked to Ruri on his right. “Let’s go. There are people still trapped in here. Some will have already turned into Rejected. We save the ones who haven’t.”

Ruri nodded. The large boy took a few steps back, then threw himself at a run against the iron gates sealed shut by the distortion. A metallic clang echoed through the street, heralding their entrance, as both gates were flung open. Ruri began wading through the psychic fog, disappearing from view. Rin locked himself a cube, and followed on after. He would show the Architect just how wrong he had been. He’d save these people and accomplish his dream, his own safety be damned.